A Delay-Based Clustering Topology Construction Strategy For The Game Service Middleware

Nowadays, P2P (Peer-to-Peer) technology is becoming more mature. P2P technology has been steadily popularized into various application fields. Besides file-sharing and multimedia streaming, large-scale multiplayer online games (MOG) also benefits from P2P technology. Different from file sharing applications, bandwidth requirement is not necessary for P2P-based game platforms or middlewares. The low latency between service provider and consumer is a more important factor. Obviously, the system can achieve the best overall performance based on low latency. Therefore, for all P2P systems sensitive to relative delay, the research on overlay based on the delayed clustering is necessary in P2P networks.In this paper, based on the features of MOGs, we analyze the characteristics of the existing P2P network architecture, and propose a delay-based clustering overlay construction strategy (DCON) for game service middlewares.According to our strategy, some peers are provided to a new joining peer through a policy called Landmark method. The new peer will place peers with the latency of specified range in its corresponding "Service Ring". And the new peer will choose the nearest nodes (in the inner-most ring) as its neighbors. The members in the Service Rings will be adjusted periodically to ensure that peers with specified latency maintained in corresponding Service Ring. In this way, the system can form a stable, effective and expansible network topology. Based on DCON strategy, virtual LAN technology and application layer multicast, we implement a large scale game service middleware for Internet, called PKTown.Finally, we analyze our strategy and also compare it with the traditional C/S model middlewares. The result shows that DCON indeed improves the feasibility and scalability of the system by realizing the delay clustering and reducing the pressure of server.